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Samsung To Roll Out In-TV Ads To Legacy Displays Via Software Update
An anonymous reader writes: According to an insider at Samsung's growing advertising team in New York, the second-largest consumer tech manufacturer in the world is planning to retrofit older network-connected TVs to display tiled ads via a software update. The South Korean company, which has seen a 20.9% decline in television sales in Q1 of 2016 under fierce competition from China, has included 'baked' ads into the interface of its recent TV offerings, and also experimented with injecting ads into users' streamed video, transmitting voice commands to a third party -- and, ironically, battling Android over its own AdBlocking technology.
"The South Korean company, which has seen a 20.9% decline in television sales in Q1 of 2016 under fierce competition from China..." So they give consumers MORE reasons NOT to buy their TVs?!!!
I'm done with ads. I will pirate ad free. Forever and ever. You can't make me like your ads. I am not watching nor participating. Arrest me now fuckheads. I hope all ad companies die and I hope all companies who support ads die. Find another way to make money or fuck off forever.
The nasty thing about upgradeable firmware is that it effectively means that hardware is governed by all the various nasty terms, conditions, EULAs, licensed-not-solds, and subject-to-change-without-notice that software is.
It's times like this when Stallman's vociferous demand for nothing less than fully free software as a necessary condition of user control looks more like lucid foresight and less like blinkered monomania. The issue was largely dormant back when firmware upgrades were hard and internet connections were the exception rather than the rule; but now it is eminently practical for a vendor to extend their control over something they supposedly sold to you more or less in perpetuity.
I've got a few years old Samsung Smart TV.
Every month or two, I get a notice about another service being discontinued. I think I'm down to maybe three whole apps that still work on it.
Sure, these are invasive ads that weren't a part of the product I bought. But at least Samsung is finally adding in place of their constant stripping of functionality.
When you're a Smart TV owner, you take victories where you can find them.
That's what I did years ago when I had a Samsung TV. I never connected it to my network and just played torrented content.
pretty soon we're going to reach the advertising event horizon.
In the aftermath of which, humans will evolve wings and curse the ground.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I purchased a new Samsung TV in December 2015 and this was not discussed as even a possibility when I chatted through options and scenarios with the store. I chose an internet-connected TV because I live in an apartment building that cannot get satellite TV, so my best option for a wider set of programming was for a net-connected TV... I took a NetFlix subscription and already had Amazon Prime.
However, for Samsung to start injecting commercials into the non-program parts of the TV [for example in the menus] would be a complete breach of the terms and conditions under which the set was purchased. It would be a bit like you purchasing a car, running it for 6 months, then being told by the manufacturer that, "Hey, we've decided your car is now a taxi. You'll have to take fee-paying passengers about when you drive. We won't ask you to change the route, but we will keep all the proceeds of the free rides you need to give."
Not happening.
In the UK at least I think this would fall fall of the "Goods and Services Act", might likely be "false advertising" [for failing to disclose the intent to push adverts], etc, etc.
Interestingly, this isn't the first time that Samsung have tried this. They did it a couple of years ago in Australia and New Zealand, where subscribers to paid network services [like NetFlix] suddenly saw crude, badly-formatted adverts appearing in the middle of (paused) Amazon Prime streaming content. There was uproad, and Samsung pulled the firmware update, hastily claiming it was pushed in error...
We might need to get ready for the same level of uproar if they try again...
They're at least one-upping Google. Samsung makes you pay for it, stuffs it full of ads anyway. They're even stuffing ads into older devices you already paid full price for fair and square.
And to complete the idiocy, they can't figure out why sales are down.
Depends what they do with it. If they sell ads to sell you a less expensive TV, maybe a lot of people could jump in. If they sell me a 60" LCD 3DTV for 199$, I could accept the ads.
All this does is fuel a death spiral to the bottom. Before you know it every TV is $199 and buying a display that does not demand an Internet connection, constant data collection (e.g. cyber stalking) and ad pushing are no longer for sale at any price.
This very same thing that happened with the app stores. Everything must be free or token cost because that's what people expect. Before you know it the entirety of the business model for software is indistinguishable from spy/mal/ad ware. Those left willing to pay cost are then summarily ignored by the market.